


Paintings from Contrasts

by lunasuta



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amélie saying graffiti is not real art even though she knows it is, F/F, Graffiti, Lena calling her too posh and stuck up, More characters to be added, RIP, Talon - Freeform, graffiti au, might add some subtle hints of other ships, street lena, the two fight over art, they're are nerds, traditional amelie, what is real art???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:09:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasuta/pseuds/lunasuta
Summary: Lena Oxton is a wild spray paint artist who hides her identity. Amelie Lacroix is more into traditional art who hides her art. Neither can deny the talent in the other, but they are both too cocky to express it properly. Perhaps if Lena would have stayed off of others private property, she would never be in sticky situations. Maybe if she followed her head.She wouldn't be an Oxton if she did that though.





	Paintings from Contrasts

The interesting thing about art is that it describes so many objectives in one word.

Many people think of different things when they hear the word, but it is somehow linked to the same origin. Many don’t limit this to visual art, but the ones that do even differ from what they imagine when the subject is in the air.

Some think of sophisticated paintings by the famous artists printed in history books, others imagine more modern digital art or even using new materials and ideas.

These ideas might include spray painting on the side of the biggest private building in the city

This was hardly the first time Lena Oxton had violated a private area to make it her canvas, and in her mind, it wasn’t going to be the last. The building had been one of the many that was bought and owned by Talon, a V.A. company.

And it also happened to be the next art project to the young graffiti artist.

Lena was usually very slippery when it came to practices that pushed the law. She never made the piece too large or let it take too long. She was nimble and slick, but despite her practices in these activities, this was one of her most risky adventures of spray painting.

The picture itself would be a cheetah, one of her favorite animals. The tip of its tail would have a rainbow spewing from it. Lena tended to make her images full of motion and color. And of course, she usually threw a rainbow in as a trademark.

Although this was on a private and large piece of property, Lena kept her art low, just at the loading garage that was obviously never used. Only one camera was stationed and the artist was sure to keep out of its sight. Even if she had been spotted, the artist was always sure to wear her hood and mask to hide the most distinct parts of her body.

She had gotten a reputation. Many began to call her the “Tracemaker,” which Lena took quite the liking to. So much in fact, that she spread her name around as “Tracer,” when anyone asked if she knew about the strange graffiti around town.

It was not that the artist wanted to violate people’s property—she just didn’t feel as if the materials provided at art stores sufficed for what she wanted to express.

She certainly did leave an imprint and effect on most places she covered. Many of her pieces included powerful messages of equal rights for omnics and many others. Although war had been over, Lena believed there was still a fight going on and she was always sure to leave her tag on the piece so the viewers would know who was still fighting.

Her current piece, however, was one she was doing for fun and to test her limits.

The Tracemaker finished a streak of blue and wiped her face to clear the sweat dripping down her brow. She leaned down to grab her next color when she heard the patter of footsteps.

_Shit_

It was not unusual for this to happen. Grabbing her bag, the artist stuffed her cans inside and threw her body behind the wall guarding the exertion fans outside. As the footsteps grew closer, though, Lena realized there wasn’t as many people coming as she suspected.

_It only sounds like one person now._

A few seconds of silence from the absence of footsteps are present until the thing Lena was anticipating to hear broke the silence.

“Hello? Whoever is vandalizing this property needs to leave immediately!”

The voice belonged to a woman, one with an accent that Lena couldn’t put a finger on with just those few words.

_Italian? French? Danish even?_

“You wont be able to hide from our sights forever, you absolute disrespectful fool.”

_Going with French then._

After her last remark, the footsteps began once again, this time losing sound as time passed. It was then that Lena notices it sounded like the woman was wearing heals. She got close to the edge of the wall when it seemed she was far enough to be safe.

She was tall, freakishly tall, especially with those heals on. Her hair was rather long as well. Unfortunately, these were the only features Lena could pick up from the distance and in the darkened setting.

The artist waited a few extra minutes even after the footsteps exceeded and returned to her art just to add her tag.

And the last color to her rainbow, of course.

 

 

 Working for a V.A. was rather stressful, considering half your patients were machine. It made it difficult to pinpoint what kind of medical attention—or technical attention would need to be granted for the many different models of machines. But it was no harder than humans who differ so much from the next.

Amélie lacroix had been a member of Talon since her husband, Gérard, died in an accident. Ever since she needed to return to supporting herself after the luxury of getting funds from the benefits Overwatch gave her husband.

Her husband’s death could potentially have linked to Overwatch overworking him, or sending him on too risky of missions, but she tried to stray her thoughts.

She couldn’t complain though, Overwatch gave Talon many soldiers that needed medicals ratings, and therefor gave her claims to get her money. She missed him from time to time, but did not allow her emotions to distract her from cases.

Amélie was appreciative for her well paying job, but she wished she could have stayed doing what she had done before.

She always had a weak spot for painting, even though ballet was her number one love. She adored the way oil paintings held depth and texture, or the way watercolors brought out the movement of emotions. She just could not get enough of many visual art styles.

She started painting and doing many methods to create visual art a couple years after she started dancing professional ballet as a career. It was a way to portray the emotions deep down without having to stretch her legs.

It was a pity that she was unable to find time as much after starting her job at Talon. She had numbed herself too much anyway,

At least that’s what she told herself.

She was still able to at least paint every now and then if she had finished a claim early, which was fortunate. In fact, she had planned to stay in the office even after her assignments to work on a piece.

It was easier to work on art at the office because by the time she got home, she was often ready to worship her bed from exhaustion. Her boss allowed her to eventually because of her effort in her job anyway. That was a blessing in itself.

“Whatcha working on?”

The trainee who went by the name of Sombra always had the habit of sticking her nose in Amélie’s office.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The more experienced employee was keen in hiding her work, so she was rather shaken by Sombra being able to see the work in progress painting on her floor.

“Don’t play this game. That piece of art is in plain sight.” Sombra made an attempt to reach for the painting, which was a mistake as Amélie quickly grabbed her arm in a death grip.

“That is none of your concern.”

After her husband’s death, Amélie had grown a disdain for too much attention to her art. The times she did paint, she made it out to be very personal.

“Whoa okay, chill out. I see it’s hard for the _artist_ to receive critique.”

“Shouldn’t you be heading home, Sombra?” It was true; many trainees were let off earlier.

“Huh, looks like I lost track of time. I’ll be seeing you, friend.”

Amélie gave a grunt as her goodbye and the other girl finally left.

She grabbed her painting after the majority of the others had left and ran her hand over the dried acrylic.

 She always used thick layers to insure texture. It gave her something to feel.

The office was rather large for those of this position. It gave lots of room to paint—not that too much room was needed, just appreciated.

Amélie quickly got to work, taking little time to get in her grove of meaningful strokes of paint. The canvas was of decent size, giving the painter the time to work on separate areas as another dried.

It was a slow process, especially without being able to work on it ever day, yet Amélie managed somehow. She always did.

An unnoticed hour passed and then another passed with it, making it eight p.m. Many never stayed later than seven, but the office was open for those in need to a work computer or other appliances.

She was probably, once again, the last one in the building.

Even if Amélie hadn’t stayed to paint, she found herself overworking on a difficult claim that many of her lazy coworkers refused to handle.

Honesty, where was her raise?

Somewhere in her process of blending her cooler colors at the bottom of the canvas, the focus was broken.

The emergency security light had started going off.

It wasn’t uncommon. The building was over-sensitive and had many bugs that made it go off on accident.

She often figured the only reason the company kept Sombra around was probably because she was the only one who knew how to work on it.

Amélie let out an annoyed growl. She hated being interrupted so far in the process of a piece, but she still began the precautions that were necessary for when this happened.

Check the cameras, and then write the time of the alert. Check the cameras again, and then turn off the alarm. Check the cameras one more time in case the police need to be alerted…

They say third times the charm. But this was the opposite of charm.

It was the smallest bit of movement at the tip of the camera. So small it could have been imagination.

Amélie was not one to imagine things, however, and she was certainty not one to be afraid of the unknown.

She quickly checked the location of the camera she saw the movement on: Deck B.

Of _course_ it had to be at the lowest inclined area of the building. It would be easy if it weren’t the furthest away and the shadiest place on the cameras.

Letting out what seemed to be the hundredth sign of the day, she began her venture to the elevator.

For a building that was run by a powerful company, the quality sure seemed to lack the expenses it needed. The building probably needed more cameras and security guards. The elevator was slow, loud, and seemed like something one would want if making a haunted ride at a theme park. Perhaps the budget went to just buying large buildings to make a statement

When finally arriving at the destination, Amélie felt a sudden shock of anticipation. Unusual anticipation.

She had no weapon to defend herself. Only her experiences learned from years ago.

Yet she walked onward in autopilot. She reached the garage opening and peaked outside.

 _Nothing. Well,_ almost _nothing_.

There seemed to be something colorful splattered on the far side of the wall where the camera did not reveal before. It certainly wasn’t there before. Talon would never allow such colorful expression. Sombra often joked and remarked that Talon was homophobic. It was a miracle the employees even got to customize their desks.

Amélie looked closer at the color.

 _It was just one of those rude kids that call themselves_ artist’s _spray-paintings._ She thought and lowly clicked her tongue.

Feeling relieved, the tall woman gained her stance back and began to advance towards the color on the wall.

She stopped in front of it, like she was in an art show and ready to critique.

 _Not that this was considered art._  

A cheetah covered the wall.

The animal spray-painted was in a position that made it seem like it lashing out at something, yet it overall kept a circular shape, so it appeared to be trying to attack its tail.

The painter started almost critiquing the piece, realizing the immense color spewing from tail of the cheetah spewed the balance of color. This had to be rather immature art.

There was a slight appeal in the way the chettah was almost launching itself at something as it extended its claws. Rather impressive movement for an amateur and unofficial type of art, Amélie nearly thought.

A slight noise was made that snapped the V.A. out of her review.

Someone had trespassed. And someone had vandalized the property. This was not art, but a crime.

“Hello? Whoever is vandalizing this property needs to leave immediately!”

Screaming out in the dark to a trespasser was usually a ludicrous action, but Amélie felt no fear in confronting an immature person who vandalized private property.

The obvious silence was returned.

“You wont be able to hide from our sights forever, you absolute disrespectful fool.”

The employee couldn’t hide the venom on her tongue after remembering the disrespectful action the person here had been doing.

With perhaps a little much attitude, the _real_ artist turned on her heel and quickly paced back to the elevator.

The idea that someone would deliberately mark property started to gave Amélie a bad taste in her mouth. She couldn’t believe she actually almost considered it art. The fact she had to deal with it.

When she was finally back in her office, she tried to work on her painting for a while longer, only to find she couldn’t get back into focusing in on her strokes. Nonetheless, she forced herself to paint for another forty-five minutes.

Surprisingly, she was able to get lots done. It was not the fact that she was very emotional, no; she never let emotions control her actions.

Instead she controlled her emotions to guide her hand.

It was hardly anything to be angry about. So she was not angry, she was simply a little upset and tired. She knew she would have to write up a report and that was aggravating. She simply hated disrespectful actions and almost wanted to think the art could’ve been amazing if on a proper canvas. 

Her painting was nearly finished, the only things preventing its completion being the wetness of the paint.

And with that, Amélie packed her supplies and got ready to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time getting to write Overwatch characters, so I need to stretch my legs and get a feel for how to write them properly. 
> 
> I want to thank AdriftInWriting (for some ideas I will go through with later in this series that started this chapter). Also thank you to my beta, Yumiru!
> 
> I hope this was enjoyable and comments/critiques are appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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